According to Igorsk blog article on hacking the kindle command line, this is the result of a check of all running processes. Since he probably wasn't downloading a book at the time, the daemon may not be one of these processes unless it polls amazon frequently to check for new purchases.
Code:
[root@kindle root]# ps -A f
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1 ? S 0:01 [swapper]
2 ? SN 0:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
3 ? S< 0:00 [events/0]
4 ? S< 0:00 \_ [khelper]
20 ? S< 0:10 \_ [kblockd/0]
87 ? S 0:02 \_ [pdflush]
89 ? S< 0:00 \_ [aio/0]
86 ? S 0:00 \_ [pdflush]
10 ? S 0:00 [sleepd]
33 ? S 0:00 [khubd]
88 ? S 0:00 [kswapd0]
676 ? S 0:12 [voltd]
678 ? S 0:02 [pnlcd_animate]
681 ? S 0:00 [kseriod]
710 ? S 0:00 [wantph]
709 ? S 0:00 [wanend]
721 ? S 0:00 [mmcdd]
727 ? S 0:00 [hpdetd]
740 ? Ss 0:00 init
1116 tts/2 Ss 0:00 \_ -sh
2344 tts/2 R+ 0:00 \_ ps -A f
831 ? S 0:00 [kjournald]
884 ? S 0:03 /sbin/syslogd -m 0 -b 1 -S -s 250
887 ? S 0:01 /sbin/klogd
976 ? S 0:00 [eink_fb_apt]
974 ? S 0:04 [eink_fb_udt]
975 ? S 0:00 [eink_fb_sst]
1023 ? S 0:07 [f-s-gadget]
1024 ? S 0:00 [f-s-activity]
1063 ? S 0:00 [wdtpmd]
1071 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/watchdogd -k 9 -t 30
1079 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/netwatchd -d 20 -t 5 -p www.amazon.com
1086 ? S 0:03 /usr/sbin/nomkd -v 80 -r 44 -d 23 cvm
1092 ? S 0:00 crond -l 9 -c /etc/crontab
1097 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/tphmonitor
1101 ? S 0:00 \_ /usr/sbin/tphserver -f
1119 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/execmonitor
1128 ? S 0:00 \_ /usr/sbin/execserver
1123 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /opt/amazon/ebook/bin/run_framework
1169 ? S 0:00 \_ /bin/sh /opt/amazon/ebook/bin/start.sh
1173 ? SL 0:18 \_ /usr/java/bin/cvm -Xmx16m -Dsun.boot.library.path=/opt/usr/java/lib:/usr/java/lib -cp :/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/MobiCore-impl.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/MobipocketCoreReader.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/ReaderSDK.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/SearchSDK.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/framework-api.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/framework-impl.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/jdbm.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/json.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/kxml2.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/lib/xyml.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/AudiblePlayer.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/AudioPlayer.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/Browser.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/ContentManager.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/Demo.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/Experimental.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/Home.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/MobiReader.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/PictureViewer.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/PrefBooklet.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/Search.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/XymlBooklet.jar:/opt/amazon/ebook/booklet/msp.jar:/opt/usr/java/lib/libjnisystem.jar -Ddebug=1 -Dcheck_comm_stack=true -Dhttp.keepalive.timeout=60000 -Dhttp.maxConnections=16 -Dallow_demo=false -Dawt_fb_enable=0 -Dextkeyboard=false -Dconfig=/opt/amazon/ebook/config/framework-unix.conf -DENABLE_SEARCH_INDEXING_THREAD=true -Dprintdebugtime=false com.amazon.ebook.framework.Main
(around 30 cvm copies skipped)
2298 ? S 0:00 [mmcqd]
netwatchd appears to be a daemon that is checking to see if
www.amazon.com is available. That may mean that the software doesn't know when the network switch is turned off. It may only know when it can't reach amazon. According to the source I found, netwatchd can run some scripts every time the network is found to be connected.
Have to go now. Will finish this comment when I have more time.